Jon Kennedy,
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Making heaven wait? take two

Jonal
entry 907 | Wednesday, August 24, 2005

I've been asked to say more about
Wednesday's topic, "Making heaven wait?" so today I'll reply to several
of the specific points raised.

If
heaven is something so much better than where we now are, why not stop taking
the heart drugs, the chemo, the insulin, and whatever else we cling to to keep
us around for another day, week, month or decade?

The
first part of this question reminds me of a movie I saw at the Capitol Theater
in my childhood, "Stars in my Crown," in which Joel Grey played a gun-totin'
small-town parson. It came to mind because I can't remember ever hearing a sermon
on how great heaven is (or will be), but that movie, or at least the hymn that
it borrowed its title from, dealt with that topic. I've never preached or taught
Bible studies about how great heaven will be. I suppose there are ministries in
which this is a high priority, but my own and those I have always admired and
emulated are much more oriented to the question that is the title of Francis Schaeffer's
magnum opus, How Then Shall We Live? (emphasis added).

To
the second clause in the sentence, I have two thoughts. First, I don't think it's
true that all of us are fighting our hardest to extend life. A case can be made
logically, I think, for just the opposite proposition. Why are we overweight,
not working out as much as we should, some of us even smoking and drinking excessively
if holding onto life is our highest value? We all know these things are killers,
yet they are very widespread in our culture. Many have observed that we are a
culture fixated on death, as though we have a suicidal obsession. Philosophically,
this is often explained in terms of nihilism, meaning that the sense we have of
death is so strong that we give up living and embrace the opposite. Christians
are the one set of our population that professes (at least) that this death-obsession
is displeasing to God and therefore sinful, so we trybut often only by great
effortto keep our minds on life rather than death.

And, a more down-to-earth
explanation: many people take their heart, blood pressure, cholesterol, and other
medicines because their doctors have prescribed them and, often, little more.

And
my second approach to the second clausean attempt to make sense of our heroic
efforts to continue life despite its painis also philosophical, or "highly
theoretical." We hold on to life to whatever extent we do because we are
carnal (fleshly, that is) and temporal (time-oriented) beings. We know, if we
believe the Bible, that after death we will be raised spiritual beings (1 Corinthians
15) who have no use for or place in time, and we live in the hope of that. And
in Orthodoxy and some other segments of the Christian world, the emphasis is on
becoming as "spiritual" as it is possible to become while we're still
living carnal beings. But although the holiest among us may transcend some aspects
of this fleshly pale (being conduits of miracles, for example), none of us have
ever been spiritual beings belonging to the ephemeral realm (heaven) of angels
and those who require no food or fleshly needs and desires. We'd rather go to
that realm when our time comes than to cease to exist or go to the place of torment
where the fire is not quenched, but we're in no hurry because we
can't begin to imagine what it's going to be like to be spiritual beings.
We can read C. S. Lewis whose space trilogy gives what I consider the best imaginings
of it, but we can't get much closer. What Orthodoxy says about that realm is that
we go to the presence of God and without sharing His essense we will share His
energies, as beings of pure energy.

And as suggested
in citing Francis Schaeffer's How Then Shall We Live? I'll conclude
by taking up one more thought the correspondent raised: "And to say that
all Christians are pro-life in this context is nothing but a convenient weapon
to use against the outspoken, female, 'Liberal'...of the list.....Every human
being who believes in the sanctity of human life should fight for and do what
is necessary to preserve the lives of the defenseless unborn." I never speak
of "what Christians believe" as a statistical proposition; I wouldn't
use that phrase as something that equates or pertains to "what all
Christians believe." What Christians believe (to me) is what the Bible teaches
and the church has taught from the beginning, or at least through the seven ecumenical
councils, not what some commentator or radio personality or feminist theologian
is teaching today or what a Gallup poll "finds" Christians believe.
And when I said "Christians are prolife" I wasn't thinking about abortion,
as vital as that issue is, but I was referring to the fact that Chistianitythe
faith of the resurrection, the religion of the victory over deathis
always in every sense pro-life, all about the teaming creation of God's handiwork
that fills the world and lives to glorify Him.

Thought
for today

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